Volume 1, Number 5
Dec 1988

Senator Pell Seeks Legislation on Acid-Free
Paper

Sen. Claiborne Pell (D, RI), chairman of Congress's Joint
Committee on the Library, says that during the next congressional
year he intends to push for a national policy to have important
books and other publications printed on acid-free paper. To this
end, he introduced on October 11 a joint resolution (S.J. Res. 394,
"To Establish a National Policy on Permanent Papers") which will be
reintroduced and pursued with vigor in the next session. He
introduced it with a speech which was printed on page S 15477 of the
Congressional Record for October 11.

In his speech, he summarizes the brittle book problem and
acknowledges the steps taken by the Library of Congress, National
Archives and National Library of Medicine, with help from Congress.
"However," he says, "it makes little sense to continue the remedy
without attempting to curb the basic problem. And that is what the
resolution I am offering today is designed to do. It establishes a
national policy to promote and encourage the printing of books and
other publications of enduring value on nonacidic paper. In a
figurative sense, it locks the library door against prospective
invasion by publications printed on acidic paper....

"... It should be noted that the implementation of the national
policy, by attacking the problem prospectively, will have the effect
of reducing the long-range costs of deacidification. Every book
produced on acid-free paper today frees up preservation resources
which can be used to attack the crumbling backlog of publications
dating back to 1850.

"I commend this resolution to the attention of the Senate, " I
invite comments and suggestions. It is, of course, late in the
100th Congress, but I intend to reintroduce the resolution in
January 1989, and I hope it will be possible to hold public hearings
soon thereafter to explore the matter in depth. I have every
confidence that it will not be said 100 years from now that we knew
how to solve this problem but did nothing about it."

The text of the resolution itself is as follows:

JOINT RESOLUTION

To establish a national policy on permanent
papers.

Whereas it is now widely recognized and scientifically
demonstrated that the acidic papers commonly used in documents,
books, and other publications for more than a century are
self-destructing and will continue to self-destruct;

Whereas Americans are facing the prospect of continuing to lose
national historical records, including government records, faster
than salvage efforts can be mounted despite the dedicated efforts of
many libraries, archives, " agencies, such as the National Archives
and Records Administration;

Whereas the Congress has already appropriated $50,000,000 to the
National Archives and Records Administration, $32,000,000 to the
Library of Congress, and $2,400,000 to the National Library of
Medicine for deacidifying or microfilming books too brittle for
ordinary use, and $25,000.000 to the National Endowment for the
Humanities for grants to libraries and archives for such
purposes;

Whereas nationwide many hundreds of millions of dollars will need
to be spent by the Federal, State, and local governments and private
institutions to salvage the most essential books and other materials
in the libraries and archives of academic and private
institutions;

Whereas there is an urgent need to prevent the acid paper problem
from continuing into the indefinite future by which already exist,
in as much as acid free permanent papers with a life of several
hundred years already exist and are being produced to some extent at
prices competitive with acid papers;

Whereas the American Library Association Council in a resolution
dated January 13, 1988, has urged publishers to use acid free
permanent papers in books and other publications of enduring use and
value, and other professional organizations have expressed similar
opinions;

Whereas some publishers such as the National Historical
Publications and Records Commission, the Library of Congress and
many university presses are already publishing on acid free papers,
and the Office of Technology Assessment has estimated that only 15
to 25 percent of the books currently being published in the United
States are printed on acid free paper; are printed on acid free
paper;

Whereas even when books are printed on acid free paper the fact
that such books are printed on acid free paper is often not made
known to libraries by notations in the in standard bibliographical
listings;

Whereas most government agencies do not require the use of
appropriate Federal records and publications, and associations
representing commercial publishers and book printers have thus far
not recommended the use of acid free papers;

Whereas paper manufacturers have stated that a sufficient supply
of acid free papers would be produced if publishers would specify
the use of acid free papers; and

Whereas there is currently no statistical information from public
or private sources regarding the present volume of production of
acid free papers and what volume of production would be required to
meet an increased demand: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,

Section 1. It is the policy of the United States that Federal
records, books, and publications of enduring value be produced on
acid free papers.

Sec. 2. The Congress of the United States urgently recommends the
following:

(1) Federal agencies require the use of permanent papers for
publications of enduring value produced by the Government Printing
Office or produced by Federal grant or contract, using the
specifications for permanent paper established by the Joint
Committee on Printing.

(2) Federal agencies require the use of archival quality papers
for permanently valuable Federal records and confer with the
National Archives and Records Administration on the requirements for
paper quality.

(3) American publishers use permanent paper for publications of
enduring value, and voluntarily comply with the American National
Standard, and when books are printed on acid free papers the fact of
such printing be noted in the books, in advertisements, in catalogs,
and in standard bibliographic listings.

(4) Reliable statistics be produced by public or private
institutions on the present production of permanent papers and the
volume of production required to meet the national policy declared
in section 1 regarding acid free paper.

(5) The Department of State make known the national policy
regarding acid free papers to foreign governments and appropriate
international agencies since the acid paper problem is worldwide and
essential foreign materials being imported by our libraries are
printed on acid papers.

Sec. 3. The Librarian of Congress, the Archivist of the United
States, the Director of the National Library of Medicine, and the
Administrator of the National Agricultural Library shall jointly
monitor the Nation's progress in implementing the national policy
declared in section 1 regarding acid free papers and report annually
to the Congress regarding such progress by January 1, 1990, and each
succeeding year thereafter.

Editorial Comment

First, a few small corrections. That estimate for the percent of
books in the US that are published on acid-free paper is too low, of
course, unless mass market paperbacks are included in the total.

Next, the resolution states that there is "no statistical
information from public or private sources regarding the present
volume of production of acid free papers." Actually, such
information is compiled and circulated or published by several
individuals in the paper industry, but because of the information
barrier between the paper industry and the preservation community,
it is hard to find. That information barrier is not deliberate, by
the way, and it has nothing to do with antitrust regulations that
forbid discussion of prices at paper meetings. It is just that
librarians and archivists do not go to meetings of papermakers and
papermakers do not attend meetings of the SAA or ALA. Each group
publishes in a different set of journals, uses different suppliers,
and goes to different schools. Papermakers live near the mills,
which are all on rivers, while the people who work with research
collections are all in cities and university towns.

Lastly, the resolution should not prejudice its case
unnecessarily by implying that there is a price difference between
acid and acid-free papers. In the only known comparative price
study (APA, #3, p.
20), prices turned out to be the same. The popular belief that
acid-free papers cost are may be a carryover from the early years of
this century, when the only way people knew to make longer-lasting
paper was to use rag pulp. It could also be a result of the mill
practice of converting their best quality grades first, or of
purchasers upgrading when they switch to alkaline paper, or of the
high prices charged for Permalife and similar papers marketed
through retail mail-order outlets to tiny markets.

This resolution is a great step forward, and the legislation to
be proposed in 1989 may be the answer to everyone's wishes. We have
all read, however, about literal-minded fairies who created problems
by granting poorly-worded wishes. It would be too bad if
legislation based on this resolution turned out to backfire like
those fairy-tale wishes, just because it emphasizes pH at the
expense of other permanence characteristics.

Acid-free paper can be short-lived if it is oxidized, of poor
quality, or made vulnerable to oxidation by alkaline sodium
compounds. For permanence, paper also needs an alkaline buffer
(almost always calcium carbonate) to protect it from the effects of
pollution, high temperature and humidity, light, and other agents of
deterioration both in the environment and within the paper itself.
It must be free, or at least reasonably free (whatever that is) of
groundwood. It must also be strong (durable) enough for its
expected use, not only now, but in future centuries when it has lost
some of its initial strength. All this has been well established by
the research on paper permanence over the last 60 or so years, which
can be reviewed in the permanence bibliographies of the Institute of
Paper Chemistry to 1977, and in the database PAPERCHEM after
that.

But how can all these factors be made explicit in a resolution as
eloquent and convincing as this one, without destroying the effect
altogether? Could the main criteria for permanence and durability
be described in one of the Whereases, and referred to thereafter as
permanence This would take care of most concerns, but would leave a
few loose ends, such as specs for other permanence factors and lists
of test methods for monitoring conformity. (The problem of
preserving the eloquence of the document would disappear if we were
writing a law. No one cares whether logs are eloquent or not.)

Why couldn't both the resolution and the law refer to standards?
That would make it even simpler, and that's what standards are for.
Both the resolution and the law could simply recommend or require
that paper meet at least one of the existing formal standards of
paper permanence. That would eliminate the task of modifying the
law as our technology changes, because there are procedures for
regular updating of formal standards. If standards are not referred
to, it may be impossible to implement the national policy on
permanent paper as conceived.

If conformity to standards is too much to expect of everyone all
at once, perhaps a temporary compromise could be struck by requiring
"acid-free, buffered" paper, and encouraging eventual conformity to
permanence standards.

It may seem inconsistent for the Editor of the Alkaline
Paper Advocate to be saying that it is not enough for paper
to be alkaline, but it is actually not. This newsletter was founded
as a form within which papermakers and people concerned with
preservation could communicate, and the best common ground seemed to
be that of alkaline paper. It makes no difference that the paper
industry is really concerned with profitability, and the
preservation community is really concerned with permanence.

Look at it this way: If you succeed in getting acid-free paper
used everywhere, you've made it to first base, and everyone will
cheer you. If you also succeed in getting an adequate amount of
calcium carbonate in the paper as an alkaline buffer, fewer people
will know what you are trying to do, but you will get to second
base. If you also want to guarantee a low maximum groundwood
content, you will find that some of your supporters have gotten
bored and wandered off. You are not home, though, till you get
paper that is also durable.

Another matter deserves careful consideration before the final
wording of the law is formulated: the paper on which archives and
manuscripts are recorded. Archives have a much larger problem than
libraries do, and they have far fewer champions. Only 5-10%. of
office papers are alkaline, according to an estimate from the paper
industry. When their active life is over, archivists will sort out
the most important ones to keep indefinitely; but how many of them
will last indefinitely? There is no possibility of borrowing a good
copy through inter-library loan, if the original becomes damaged or
illegible, because most archival materials are unique. Microfilming
is more expensive, because a different exposure is needed for the
sheets of paper in shades of yellow and brown. If archivists knew
how to get other people to use permanent record materials, they
would do it, but the problem is daunting because there are so many
kinds of paper that go into record materials, and so many people and
offices involved. Perhaps it would not be cowardly of us to
postpone the campaign for archives until the campaign for libraries
is won. But we should not deceive ourselves that this joint
resolution will do much to solve the archives' problem of
impermanent record materials.